


The Winter Solstice

by TwistedTale



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedTale/pseuds/TwistedTale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I shouldn't have cast the spell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winter Solstice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tomione_Forum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomione_Forum/gifts).



> Fic is part of the Tomione Forum Winter Solstice Challenge. The true author will be revealed at a later date.
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/daxodokira/media/WinterChallengediploma2.jpg.html)  
> 

**The Winter Solstice**

The scrap of parchment had fallen out from between two pages in the book she had been poring over. And all the trouble started from there. _No not there._ She thought as something flickered into existence in front of her out of the dakness. _All the trouble started with Harry… it usually starts with Harry. Harry and Voldemort._

While it had over a year since Voldemort had been vanquished, the man was still causing her grief from beyond the grave _. It had been such a nice winter day too before all this_. The sun had been out, the wind wasn’t too chill, the snow seemed almost angelic in its pristine whiteness. Then Harry had shown up. He had approached her, grim faced. In his hand was an old leather journal.

“It was _his_.” Harry had said ,the stress on the word ‘his’ betraying just who he was talking about.

“Why on earth are you giving showing it to me?” She asked equal parts appalled and curious.

“Because I think you are the only one who can make sense of it. Most of the magical theory goes over my head, and over the heads of my co-workers truth be told.” He gave a rueful little smile. “My boss insisted I destroy it but…”

“…you are worried that he might have had an alternate plan to cheat death?”

His face slackened into an expression of utter relief. “Yes, that is exactly what I am afraid of. Everyone keeps laughing off my worries but I know Voldemort. He said he knew more about life and death than any other wizard alive and I believe him, the man was obsessed. I have to be sure that this,” he waved the papers for emphasis. “Isn’t some back up plan, for my own peace of mind.”

“Hand it here.”

Harry passed the journal over to her gratefully and his shoulders slumped as if some great burden had been taken from him.

“I owe you Hermione.”

“Yes, you do. I assume no one knows you have this still.”

Harry shook his head. “No, no one knows. As far as everyone is concerned it has been destroyed. They don’t believe I would have any reason to lie about it and none will dare call me out should they suspect I haven’t.”

“Not even Ron?”

He grimaced, that was all the answer she needed.

“You should tell him.”

“I tried, but he keeps insisting that I have nothing to worry about.”

Hermione sighed. Merlin help her she loved that man but he could be so blind sometimes. Harry needed closure, and she was determined to give it to him. What a fool she had been, she should have just destroyed the old journal as soon as Harry had left. Instead she had said-

“Give me a week. I should have something for you by then.”

“Thank you, really Hermione, thank you.”

\--

_All my woes started with my admiration._

Voldemort was brilliant. She had thought as she cast yet another spell on the leather bound journal. The writing on the page flickered into something else for a brief second before going back into the magical gibberish it was before.

Hermione now understood why no one could make heads or tails of Voldemort’s journal. He had charmed it to show the person reading it exactly what they expected to see. Where one Auror might have seen pages and pages of dark spells, another might have seen cooking recipes. _And it showed Harry ways of bringing the dead back to life. But because Harry never expected to understand the magic behind it, the book made it so he couldn’t._ She tapped the edge of the table restlessly as she thought. _If Voldemort himself sat down to write something the book would simply show him where he left off, because that would be what he EXPECTED to see._

It was beyond brilliant. What better way to hide information after all? To hide a tree, use a forest, to hide information, use more information.

Hermione glared at the pages. The information she saw obligingly shifted and turned into pages on the history of book burnings.

_Cheeky thing._

She had been worried at first that this journal was yet another Horcrux, but after locking away the journal and doing her own research on Horcrux identification (and pulling on her own reserves of knowledge) she was confident that it wasn’t. _He wouldn’t have used a journal twice either._ So she went back to trying to force the actual text in the book to reveal itself.

But nothing she did was working. Every once and a while she would get a flash of something beneath what she was now calling the chameleon spell, but the instances were so brief she couldn’t make out anything.

She sighed in frustration as she flipped through pages and pages of information on common relaxation techniques.

Hermione glared at the pages, and suddenly the information changed into “Common causes for wrinkles.” It was nothing her grandmother hadn’t already told her. She frowned as she scanned the text. _In fact, they have her quoted here as an expert on the subject._

The more she read the more she found that the information was nothing she didn’t already know. She frowned and thought very intently about basic charms, instantly the pages were filled with all her knowledge on charms. Not a scrap of new information.

 _So this thing can only show me what_ _I already know._ That meant Harry knew more about death and resurrection then he cared to admit. She frowned. What on earth had interacting with Voldemort done to Harry?

She turned to look at the book but it was only filled with nonsense sentences. It couldn’t show her what she didn’t already know, and she didn’t know the depth of the relationship between the former teenager and the Dark Lord.

_I want to understand it though._

It was at that moment the book fell. She had thought she had knocked it off in her distraction.

\--

 _I am a fool._ Hermione thought to herself as the thing in the darkness moved toward her. _Nothing happens by coincidence, I should have been more suspicious._ She couldn’t make out what it was coming at her, but it looked human, tall, but when it moved it looked more like a shifting shadow then a person. _I shouldn’t have cast the spell_

\--

A piece of parchment had come loose from the book, knocked loose from the book falling to the ground. _How hadn’t I noticed that before?_ She had thought she had gone through the entire book cover to cover. This one was folded up, as if it had been ripped out of the book and folded before. It seemed impossible.

But it was different than the rest. She opened it carefully and set it down in front of her. She concentrated on it. No matter what she thought the words stayed static. _Perhaps tearing the pages out cancels the spell?_ She tore out a page near the beginning. But nothing changed. The parchment simply flashed into a section on book repair. She snorted and went back to the parchment that had fallen from the book.

“A solstice spell?” Hermione muttered as her eyes scanned the rumpled parchment paper. She had heard of spells dedicated to the Solstices but this was the first time she had come across one. They were highly illegal according to Ministry law. _Well then it’s not surprising considering where I found it._ Her fingers smoothed the parchment out, flattening out the lines from it having been folded and unfolded again and again.

It was something new. She felt like she was absorbing the information. After days of nothing but her own knowledge reflected back at her, she was hungry for something new.

It was a spell for connection. It brought together two things from a great distance. She frowned. It was all in runes, so her translation might have been a bit choppy. But that seemed to be what it was for. Bringing two things together. Most solstice magic had to do with summoning rain or bringing warm weather, others had to do with good luck. According to legend some power witches and wizards could reach the world of the dead to talk to realities long gone.

\--

_Why did I cast the spell?_

She thought as the shadow stood before her, what looked to be a hand reached out and caressed the side of her face. It was warm, solid, and it was changing before her eyes. Those were fingers, and fingernails, and a palm. A wrist an arm and a shoulder, a torso, lean but strong, leading down to- she averted her eyes. This was a person in only their skin and nothing else. She looked up to stare at a long neck, a strong jaw, high cheek bones, black eyes framed by black lashes. His hair was soft and loose around his face, and black. He looked like he had stepped out of a 1940’s T.V. show. He was all black and white with no other color marking his porcelain perfection.

“Hermione Granger.”

“Who are you?”

“I think you know.”

She had a suspicion.

“How do you know me?”

He glanced to the left and then to the right. “There is an old saying,” he said as he glanced down at himself. His hands seemed to fascinate him. “If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. You have looked into the pages and what you saw was reflected and catalogued, as has been done for everyone who has tried to read this journal. Voldemort stared into the pages the longest out of anyone, out of ignorance. You have lingered in the pages the longest after him for the same reason.”

“Who are you?” Hermione asked trying to take a step away from him but she found that she couldn’t.

“Tom Riddle. Well a part of him. I suppose you could call me his sanity.”

“You took his sanity.”

“I took nothing. I am merely a reflection. In return I gave reflected my wealth of knowledge back upon him. Which most people cannot handle, it is unfortunate.” He tilted his head to look at her. “There is something unique about you, something you can offer me.”

“I am not giving you anything!” She hissed.

He reached out to touch her again and she found herself still. His fingers were still warm and she felt a shiver run down her spine at the slow caress. “On the contrary, you will give me everything. And very willingly as well.” His hand dropped to trace down along the curves of her body before resting on her hip. She was naked, she noticed with some alarm.

“No.”

“I will give you knowledge on any subject you could ever want. I have seen enough of people’s minds and hearts to provide an accurate description of,” he leaned in, his cheek brushed hers and she shivered as she took in his smell, “ _everything.”_ Her body was taut.

Knowledge of everything, it was tantalizing. More than she ever cared to admit. If it was true that it had looked into her, and saw the core of what she was, it knew how best to tempt her.

“I will not let you hurt anyone.” She groaned as he took her earlobe in-between his teeth and bit down gently.

“Who says I intend to hurt anyone?” He said after he was finished with his nibbling.

“If you truly are a reflection of Tom Riddle, then all you intend is harm.”

“Although I am mainly a reflection of him, I am also an accumulation of others. Thousands of others, I am so much more than one man. I can give you more than anyone person ever could.”

His words were poison. She logically knew his words were poison. But his hands had not remained idle. He was dragging his fingers down her back, pressing in just the right places to get a reaction from her. Every nerve was on fire.

“This, this is- no.” She somehow found herself able to move. She pulled away from him with a harsh jerk. “I have Ron. I love him.”

“I know you do. But I am not asking for your love, nor am I offering mine. A trade, a bit of soul for knowledge.”

“Soul?”

“There are two ways to split the soul Hermione. One is murder; the other is much gentler. It comes with pleasure, mutual orgasm. Briefly during intercourse, souls touch. I would merely keep the aspect that would reach out to me. Do not fret, souls distributed this way grow back.”

“But I can’t, I won’t, it would devastate Harry, and Ron… it would destroy him. I don’t trust you, I can’t trust you.”

Her frowned and looked contemplative for a second. “I suppose a show of trust on my end would help you in making a decision?”

“I don’t know.”

“But I do, it would go a long way with you. Very well, I will send you back to your room. The journal will be there and vulnerable should you wish to destroy it. If you do not, I will answer any questions you ask me until the Summer Solstice, when I will require your decision.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“The journal will be what it was before, a reflection, nothing more. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes. Send me home.”

She blinked, and she was where she started. In her room, in a circle of dead man’s ash, blood runes surrounding her.

She picked up the journal that had somehow found its way to her side.

“Where do we go from here?”

_Forward._


End file.
